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The last to leave our section, we were all laughing on our way out. Some families lingered around the restrooms and team shops while the concessions closed and the field lights dimmed.
“Or,” Maggie squeezed my arm, “that?”
Baseball cap on backwards, raglan and jeans, with a duffel bag strap crossing his chest, Rowan and two other players were walking in our direction.
“Come on,” I softly ushered, turning Maggie toward the door. “We have to work in the morning. Remember? Your internship is about more than gawking at baseball players.”
“What’s the rush?” Lauren beamed.
I looked at her, my mother hen resting no-nonsense face startling her. “The rush is trying to catch the train back so we’re not stuck down here all night. Let’s go.”
“Ellis!” Becky shouted, shrugging at me when I groaned. Rowan turned around, looking for whoever called him.
“I’m going,” I told the girls. “Good night. Maggie, eight o’clock.” What am I doing? Becky and Lauren were under my care. I turned around, watching Maggie twirl her golden curls as Diego approached her.
Staring at the sky, I quietly groaned to the heavens and demanded God tell me why this kept happening to me. Maggie was my intern, and also my responsibility. This was just supposed to be one Emeralds game, nothing more. I couldn’t leave them alone.
“Let’s go,” I put my arm around Maggie and Becky. They seemed the most enchanted by the wall of muscle heading toward us. Lauren was blushing, but I thought maybe I could reason with her. “The next train is in five minutes. I need to get you three home.”
“I’ll tell you who I’d like to go home with,” Lauren told me, covering her mouth as she burst into laughter. Crossing Lauren off my list then.
“Hey.” I heard Rowan behind us, his voice unmistakable. Becky turned against my arm, facing backward as I tried shoving them out the doors.
“He’s touching you,” Becky gasped. She wasn’t wrong, but I already had too much to manage with those three flirts, so I couldn’t add Rowan to my list.
“Do you need help, Meredith?” I heard him drop his duffel near us as he stepped around Becky to look at me.
“Don’t tell anyone about this,” I grumbled, staring at him. “I just need to get them on the train, but they’re star struck. Could you take your face and muscles somewhere else, Ellis?”
We both turned when Maggie screamed. Far from hurt, she was embarrassing herself while swooning over Diego and his pretty eyelashes. Becky and Lauren wriggled free from me to join her, and I crossed my arms tightly, wondering at the level of force I could use to get them out of there.
“I love Aubs,” Rowan told me, nudging my shoulder with his, “but your other friends are strange.”
“She’s my intern,” I nodded to Maggie, “and those are the two students who won an essay contest about adversity and got to see the game tonight. They’re not supposed to be meeting Diego Leon. I told you just to tell him to say hi. Now look what you’ve done.”
“Me?” Rowan laughed, his right palm spreading against his heart. “I was going home. You’re the one lingering around. Were you waiting for someone, Meredith?” His eyes flicked to my mouth as his expression hardened, his blue eyes lifting to meet mine before his teammate approached.
“Hi there,” he greeted me, standing next to Rowan. “Ryan—”
“Marshall,” I interrupted him, easily recognizing their catcher up close. He was November in my baseball calendar at work. “Hi. I’m—”
“Meredith,” Rowan finished for me, rubbing his jaw. “Do you want me to call them a cab?”
“No,” I objected, feeling flustered by Ryan Marshall’s focused stare. “I just need to get them off of Diego, and we’ll be fine.”
“No way,” Ryan chuckled, placing his hand on my shoulder. I rolled my eyes down to it, letting my gaze travel the length of his enormous, flexed arm. “We’d love if you came out with us. A lady friend of Ellis’s is a friend of mine.”
“We’re not—,” Rowan and I both blurted, loud enough to get everyone’s attention. Ryan nodded to Diego and let him know I didn’t want to join them wherever they were going. It could’ve been a strip club for all I knew. And, no offense to dancers, but that just wasn’t what I had in mind for getting Becky, Lauren, and Maggie home.
Why, oh why, do these guys have to be so ridiculously attractive?
“Come on out,” Diego pleaded, his brown eyes even more irresistible without the railing between us. “One drink.”
“She’s working, Diego,” Rowan quickly replied. “Some other time. Goodnight, Meredith.”
Puzzled by his dismissal, I wondered if it was like he claimed from Aubrey’s engagement party, where he said he had to tell his teammates to leave me alone, or if he was really just being a fickle jerk now.
Diego answered for me as his muscular arm curved around my shoulders. “One drink?”
